February 18, 2014

In 2014, the global winds are blowing in favor of conservative nationalism. For example, the reason Obama is subsidizing what’s increasingly a right-wing rebellion in Ukraine isn’t because that's who he prefers, but because that’s who showed up to fight.

"...City Hall of the embattled pro-Russian government had been occupied since December by masked men swinging iron bars."

Revolutions are not pretty. In American revolution sons of liberty were violent against Tories. And continentals were aided greatly by France against motherland Britain. They are not traitors by virtue of being victors.

Steve, the red building in the foreground in the pic at the top of your article at Taki's is not a part of the Kremlin. The label js wrong. It's actually the Historical Museum. The tower at the far left of the pic is a part of the Kremlin though. I'm just being pedantic. Good article.

The Russians have some pretty good computer hackers if Hollywood fare is to be believed; the Nigerians of course have their infrastructure-crippling Spampanzer divisions; what the hell does Brazil have?

On second glance, Obama isn't even Leading From Behind; He's passed the tiller to Joey Biden:

The White House handed off the crisis to Vice President Joe Biden some time ago, with the last discussion released by the press office between President Obama and Yanukovych happening on March 27, 2012. There’s no indication of the two leaders speaking since."

Stephen Cohen:"The degradation of mainstream American press coverage of Russia, a country still vital to US national security, has been under way for many years. If the recent tsunami of shamefully unprofessional and politically inflammatory articles in leading newspapers and magazines—particularly about the Sochi Olympics, Ukraine and, unfailingly, President Vladimir Putin—is an indication, this media malpractice is now pervasive and the new norm."(http://www.thenation.com/article/178344/distorting-russia#)

So confusing. Haven't commentators on this blog been going on and on about how Jews hate and despise Russia? Isn't Putin the new Haman? Yet here we see Cohen complaining about the demonization of Russia. Maybe Cohen's a crypto-Gentile? That's the only possible explanation.

Steve:"The fundamental reason for the current anti-Russian jingoism is that—same as in a music hall in 1878—it’s fun. Nationalism is a blast."

There is a lot of truth to this thesis, Steve. People like hating someone, like indulging in crude jingoism. Of course, one of the problems with our current PC mindset is that it severely limits our targets. For example, during the Iraq invasion, hatred and contempt for the Iraqis/Arabs was not allowed to surface in the mainstream media. It is bad, bad, bad, to make fun of someone who is not a Westerner. Hence, the absurd jibes thrown at the French by the right-wing media ("cheese-eating surrender monkeys," etc). They needed a PC target for their jingoistic needs. Putin today serves a similar function. Granted, Russia is not a Western country, but it will do in a pinch.

One reason why Russians are trashed is because they are socially conservative white people. If they were socially conservative non-white people (Chinese, Indians, Africans), their conservatism would be overlooked or excused. If they were socially liberal, they would be "like us." But they persist as they are, and suffer the opprobrium that is the fate of socially conservative white people, like Southern Whites or Afrikaners.

"I see Ukraine's independence movement as a struggle against Russian and neo-Soviet imperialism."

Joining the EU will not grant independence it will remove it more than anything that Russia can throw at Ukraine. It will also have other consequences, because EU means one cannot control ones borders to other EU states, the riots in Kiev in 50 years time will look like the London riots of a few years ago.

I basically support both sides in Ukraine - Ukrainean nationalists and Russian-Ukraineans, that is. They should each have their own countries.

BTW I watched the Glenn Beck "stand with GLAAD against Heterofascism" clip. He actually says he stands with GLAAD against burning gays alive in ovens, which I believe is not Russian government policy. On that I also stand with GLAAD and Glenn Beck, and I expect President Putin would stand with us too. It looked from the clip that they were trying to get him to say something 'homophobic' in support of the Duck Dynasty guy, or 'racist' (Santa's white!)and when that didn't work they decided to declare him pro-gay.

Galicia, the heavily Catholic westernmost 10% of the Ukraine, is very traditional in its outlook. It's Christian conservative. It has a TFR slightly above 2.0, which is astounding by white standards. Of course the neocons hate Christian conservatism, but they see Putin as a bigger enemy, so they support western Ukrainian nationalists against Putin. So yes, the Galicians rioting in Kiev are right-wing.

"I see Ukraine's independence movement as a struggle against Russian and neo-Soviet imperialism."

The eastern, Orthodox 90% of the Ukraine is essentially Russia with a provincial accent. The division is mostly artificial. Only a neocon would call the Russian/Ukrainian/Belorussian desire for reunification imperialism.

However, the westernmost 10% of Ukraine has a culture and an identity of its own. Its people stopped considering themselves Russian centuries ago when they converted to Catholicism. Their dialect, which their leaders are trying to force on all of Ukraine, is not mutually intelligible with Russian. It's closer to Polish than to Russian, actually. Polish is about as different from Russian as French is from Spanish. In contrast, the everyday speech of most Ukrainians is mutually intelligible with standard Russian.

Western Ukraine is poorer and more agricultural than the east. It was a part of the original Rus' (Russian) state in the middle ages, but then came under Polish influence. Its language, religion and sense of identity were affected by that. Until WWI that area was within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Most of it went to Poland afterwards, but a part went to Czechoslovakia. It went to the USSR when the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed in 1939.

Stephen Cohen is an exception to the rule, has been for the entirety of the 20 years that I've been hearing about him. He's not representative of anything other than himself and the general principle of objectivity.

I read Mr. Sailer every day, and the comments are often superbly intelligent, but every once in a while this site reminds me that he and the commenters are, after all, merely American. This is one of those times.

It is not merely that the doctrine that the enemy of my enemy is my friend is too simple. Putin is interested in power, his own power. Russia remains economically a third world country. Let the people have nationalism, religion, illusions of influence and belonging. (As China's economy turns rancid, nationalism and appeals to tradition increase there as well.) That's all there is to it. Putin is interested in stirring up conflicts for the sake of maintaining high oil prices, that's the simplest and best explanation for Syria...

As a Pole, I have little natural sympathy for the Ukrainians (we lost more land to them in 1945 than we got from Germany) and yet, after all, there has hardly been a less lucky country in the world in this century. Western Ukraine is tangibly depopulated, an empty landscape, because the people have been starved to death, exterminated, driven out, exiled, aborted, not born, emigrated, all of these sequentially and often simultaneously. It is Europe's Africa, Europe's Cambodia, and its present power relations with Russia are somewhat like North Korea's relations with China. With all that this entails for the poor populace.

Hopeful and naive embroidery here about Russia as an ally of Western white or WASP civilization is about as deluded as, say, Buchanan's sotto voce hints that Hitler wasn't so bad, that we really ought to have stayed out of World War II.

>package 3.0 said..."The Russians have some pretty good computer hackers if Hollywood fare is to be believed; the Nigerians of course have their infrastructure-crippling Spampanzer divisions; what the hell does Brazil have?"

A fascinating read, as usual. I'd quibble with your assertion that Russia's intellectual temperament is universalist: in the nineteenth century, many of the country's sharpest writers and thinkers - Dostoyevsky not least among them - were the Slavophiles who advocated a specifically anti-western particularism. One could argue that the Russian Revolution means the Slavophiles lost the argument, but it was indeed an argument.

Later in this century, conflicts will presumably center on ownership of scarce resources on a stressed and crowded planet. Facing modern weaponry sounds horrific, but when your country is down to sixty days' worth of water you don't really have another option.

Conservatives will better hold their own in the country's political discourse (it shouldn't be hard; most liberal pundits are morons) when they start taking environmental problems seriously.

I am fascinated with the tendentiousness of people you quote. The U.S. Government expends over 2 decades a nominal sum of $5 bn on economic aid (for a country which was in wretched shape 20 years ago) and we are 'subverting' Ukraine. You all might try harder not talking like shills for Russian intelligence.

Mr. Anonymous, you might when you find yourself saying things like that insert the name of a real person and see if it sounds something other than ridiculous. As in, "Mr. Beasley at the post office likes hating someone and likes indulging in crude jingoism".

The more disintegrated Russia becomes, the better for Davos Man, the Western oil interests, Soros, and the usual gang of neocon suspects. They don't call it nation-wrecking for nothing, folks. Of course a few neocon commentators tsk about the details after the operation is underway. That's to be expected.

They are all counting on Putin to crumble without a real fight (a major regional conflict). Or maybe they want even WW3. After all, a war is as good as a revolution for shaking things up and providing substantial money-making opportunities. The mountains of corpses will be merely another externality for these monsters.

How can Russia be considered to have 'no natural defenses'? When Napoleon threatened to unite Europe under himself he was eventually stopped by his inability to defeat Britain because of the Channel and Russia because of the vast distances, winter, and mud.

That may have been just a unique historical contingency except exactly the same thing happened again in 1941. The evidence would seem to suggest that Russia has superb natural defenses.

You commented also on minoritarianism. You wrote that America may be coming to appreciate Putin's anti-liberalism. But the classical minoritarianism viewpoint in America is dominated by our attitude towards the Jews. It is now impossible to mention Jews in any context without evoking memories of the Holocaust. That event is said to have killed six million Jews. Recently historians are increasingly upping the death estimates on the Ukrainian genocide. A few decades ago it was two million but recently they seem to estimate eight million - more than the Nazi genocide of the Jews.

But still today when you say 'genocide' the public hears Jew not Ukrainian. The Ukrainians, as far as I know, have never mounted a campaign to publicize their own genocide at the hands of the Russian communists. The Jews and the Armenians want everyone to know what was done to them, but even today the attempt by Stalin to break the Kulaks through starvation is a little known story.

Maybe Putin just wants to keep it that way.

Finally I think the whole gay angle is just noise. Putin likes to take his shirt off in public. Normally when I see a picture of a bare chested man on the web I suspect that it is a site that is trying to appeal to male homosexuals. I'm sure someone in the Kremlin has whispered that little tidbit of info into his ear.

I had a male employee once who was virulently anti-gay. He was an immigrant and we were working in San Francisco. I quietly told him he had a 'gay haircut'. He was shocked. But of course the 'Castro clones' have all sorts of identifying items of dress and grooming.

Maybe someone told Putin that hunting bear bare chested with a spear was the action of a man not too sure about his own masculinity. I doubt if that's actually true, but the mere suspicion of appearing in anyway girly might have motivated him to establish his manly credentials by cracking down on gays. He is awfully short you know.

I don't know if the timing of the actual events supports this speculation. But I doubt very much if the anti-gay policies in Russia really horrify many normal Americans. Homosexuality as a political issue is not really very important. But gay males like to promote so called homophobia as if it were some burning and vital issue on the public stage.

Haven't commentators on this blog been going on and on about how Jews hate and despise Russia?... Yet here we see Cohen complaining about the demonization of Russia. Maybe Cohen's a crypto-Gentile? That's the only possible explanation.

Bill O'Reilly seems to have an extreme hatred of Russia judging by all of his recent commentary. He might as well come out and say that the Russian government is run by the devil.

I wish he would show this much hatred for amnesty for Illegals.

Bill O'Reilly is one of those so-called "Conservatives" who's political views on amnesty became more left of center after Mitt Romney lost the election because he believes the GOP needs to reach out more to Hispanics by pandering to them on the issue of immigration.

Bill O'Reilly thinks Vladimir Putin is a bigger threat to Western society than Somali and Mexican immigrants for example flooding 1st world White nations in huge numbers.

"The Ukrainians, as far as I know, have never mounted a campaign to publicize their own genocide at the hands of the Russian communists.

Albertasaurus, there weren't a lot of Russians among early Communists. Jews were heavily overrepresented, and other ethnic minorities were overrepresented. It was essentially an anti-Russian movement. Ukrainians, well, the ones who aren't Catholic, are basically a type of Russians, so yes, they suffered under early Communism.

"Because otherwise why does it matter? Who does it influence? The Russians don't care."

Young impressionable Russians may be brainwashed by Western media. Same for young, impressionable Chinese and Muslims. Western media's message is packaged as progress, democracy, human rights. It takes a lot of skepticism to see through that. NYT, etc. are not just aiming at the internal Western audience.

The opposition filled with Hitler nostalgiasts. Not all but many. The meat of the opposition.

What is the proof of this? It's the first time I'v heard it about Ukraine. I keep hearing it about Italian and Greek opposition groups and it seems to just be a convenient slur but I wouldn't mind being proven wrong.

Hopeful and naive embroidery here about Russia as an ally of Western white or WASP civilization is about as deluded as, say, Buchanan's sotto voce hints that Hitler wasn't so bad, that we really ought to have stayed out of World War II.

You're Polish though.

Also there isn't much difference between Poland and Russia in the minds of most Westerners, despite the former's Catholicism and Latin alphabet. They're both similarly foreign, in a similar Slavic way.

The opposition filled with Hitler nostalgiasts. Not all but many. The meat of the opposition.

Very few. You are believing exactly what Stalin, Kaganovich, and Putin want you to believe. i.e. Ukrainians who care more for Ukraine than Moscow are Nazis, maybe not all of them, but enough.

There are a good many young Ukrainians in the independence movement who are neo-pagans. It's not a well-known fact, and has been buried by the NWO mass media. They have been repulsed by the Moskali corruption, ineffectiveness, empty moralism, and neo-con-ism of the Orthodox and Catholic churches. Could these be the "Hitler nostalgists" you claim?

Or are you referring to veterans of the 14the SS Galizia division? Then you might as well tar all of wartime Finland with the same brush.

There are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from Ukraine in Poland. Men typically do construction and women work as caregivers and housekeepers. The disparity in GDP per capita, $21,000 in Poland and $7,300 in Ukraine, is so stark it generates a great deal of envy and a sense of injustice that no doubt has contributed to the current events. The ties between Poland and Ukraine run deep, and go back to 1300s when what is now called Ukraine was part of Poland and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under the Piast and Jagiellonian dynasties

There are two cultural/spiritual/political attitudes that shaped Europe: the Catholicist and Byzantinist. Protestantist outlook could be considered the third, but as Protestanism grew out of Catholicism(than out of Orthodox), it shares the universalist zeal of Catholicism.

Theoretically, Byzantinist-Orthodoxism is universalist since Christianity is a world religion about how God and Jesus loves everyone. And yet, Byzantinist worldview tended to favor resignation, subservience, insularity, passivity, and conservatism as opposed to the aggressive dynamism of the Catholic Church(and Protestants)who were filled with missionary zeal to evangelize/convert the world. American and English missionaries in China tried to convert all of China. Russian Orthodox Church in China only catered to the Russian community there and didn't care to convert any Chinese. Catholics were hard at work in Latin America, Philippines, Africa, and etc. Do we see Russian Church trying to convert people in Africa, Latin America, and etc? No. The Byzantinist outlook on life is "leave it up to God's grand design" and resign yourself to your place, your community, and your world. Indeed, the Byzantinist tended to view the missionary zeal of Catholicism and Protestantism as egotistical, self-righteous, and self-aggrandizing. I mean who are individuals to act as if they know God's design by running all around trying to convert everyone? Leave it up to God. If Christianity will prevail, it will happen organically and gradually by God's own schedule. There is no need for people to speed up time with 'progress' and missionary zeal.

Russians expanded territorially because it came easy to them. To the vast east, they had huge open spaces that were sparsely inhabited and simply there for the taking(especially with the fading of Mongol power). As for the Muslims to the South, they were a fading power and could easily be conquered as in the 18th and 19th centuries. If Russia had been situated between France and Germany, Russians would have minded their own business and would likely have been the least aggressive power. So, Russian expansionism was really an accident of geography. And if American missionaries at least tried to convert the American Indians, Russian settlers and the Russian Church didn't care to convert the Eskimo-like heathens in Siberia.

Communism is a universalist ideology, and Russia caught its bug in the Revolution. But the truly globalist personalities of communism were Jewish. Stalin the Georgian had a kind of Byzantinist view of power himself. He wanted national communism. And he didn't want to conquer any more than he needed to. Russia's swallowing of Eastern Europe was another accident of history due to Hitler's attack on Russia. And Soviet communism eventually became more Byzantinist, the default outlook of Russians. Though USSR regurgitated the same stuff about world revolution, Kremlin increasingly became less interested in events outside Russia. And the fall of messianic communism in Russia owed to Russia's inherently Byzantinist view of the world. They wanna mind their own business.

We all know what the Pope looks like. We know his name. But who knows what the Russian patriach looks like? Most don't even know his name. Pope is a powerful individual who puts himself forward as the servant of God. The Russian patriarch, in contrast, recedes into the background as part of the glacial tradition. We can see the different in Catholic art and Orthodox art. Figures in Catholic art are powerfully and clearly etched and presented; they have individuality. But the figures in Orthodox art are part of the larger fabric/texture/pattern--the impervious design of God.

Protestantism did away with much of Catholic idolatry but it has a powerful sense of passion of reforming and cleaning up the world. Martin Luther idolized the feelings of purity and purgation.

Dugin is NOT a universalist but a pan-particularist. He's saying all the particularist powers should band together to fend off the all-consuming universalism of American-EU globalism. A true universalist would say "all you guys gotta do like I do." Dugin is saying, "we Russians wanna do our Russian thing, you Arabs should do your Arab thing, you Chinese should do your Chinese thing, you African Negroes should do your Afro-jive thing, etc."

"Putin is interested in stirring up conflicts...""Putin is interested in power, his own power.""As a pole I have little natural sympathy for the Ukrainians..."

There are people out there who doubt that Putin really is a Russian nationalist. If he wasn't a Russian nationalist, why would Polish nationalists hate him? If he wasn't a Russian nationalist, why would the neocons hate him? This is almost like constructing a mathematical proof.

Art Deco:"Mr. Anonymous, you might when you find yourself saying things like that insert the name of a real person and see if it sounds something other than ridiculous. As in, "Mr. Beasley at the post office likes hating someone and likes indulging in crude jingoism"."

Sure. My friend Paul likes hating someone and likes indulging in crude jingoism. His hatred and jingoism take the form of loathing people from Arizona. He loves going on about how inferior they are to Californians, how their nativism and bigotry disgust him. Since Arizonans are acceptable targets in his SWPL circle, no one minds.

People like finding acceptable targets for their jingoism. It's human nature.

Anonymous:"Stalin was a Georgian, not a Russian. He was the one who was ultimately responsible for the Holodomor. For a short summary of some of his accomplices, see this."

Stalin was a Georgian, yes. But he increasingly identified himself with the Russian state (cf how, in WW2, he increasingly invoked Great Russian patriotism; addressed his listeners on the radio as brothers and sisters, not as comrades; and even glorified in the idea that he had given Russia an empire greater than what it had known under the Tsars).

If there is an universalist element in Russianism, it is by example than expansion(outside Russian territory). Some Russians thought that Russians should be the holiest people, and this example might inspire the rest of the world. Russians should huddle around a perfect fire for themselves, and it would be so holy that non-Russians might notice too and learn from it.

In contrast, the West's idea is to spread the fire all over the world.

Shiiiite. I thought the superrich in EYES WIDE SHUT were weird. Check out these fellers. ROTFL.

"The earnest, the diligent, the idealistic, they have no place there. Why would powerful members of Congress align themselves with this message? Why do they become part of it? I guess they think they’re showing they’re in on the joke and hip to the culture. I guess they think they’re impressing people with their surprising groovelocity."

It's like the Pop Art sensibility has taken over politics and social values: "Wink wink, we are all in on the joke." Warholization of politics.

Rather than discussing the situation itself, I'll throw out a comment on the way Fox News, at least, is covering it. Hmm, is the phrase "jingoistic bullshit" too strong? On reflection, i don't think so.

Saw a chatter this morning with KT McFarland, and damn, I was ready to go to war with the dirty Commies myself. Ronald Reagan was spinning in his grave, she averred! All that the poor Ukrainians wanted was democracy and an opening to the West, while Stalin and Putin were just trying to bribe the corrupt elites to sell out their people.

I was, once more, disappointed. The naked slavering aggression was disgusting and, since in the end what matters is throw weight, deeply stupid.

Anonymous:"There have been clashes between India and Pakistan despite both having nukes."

The only "clash" of any real significance since both countries gained nuclear weapons is the so-called Kargil War:

"Commonly known as Kargil War, this conflict between the two countries was mostly limited. During early 1999, Pakistani troops along with Kashmiri insurgents infiltrated across the Line of Control (LoC) and occupied Indian territory mostly in the Kargil district. India responded by launching a major military and diplomatic offensive to drive out the Pakistani infiltrators.[17] Fearing large-scale escalation in military conflict, the international community, led by the United States, increased diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to withdraw forces from Indian territory.[17][18] By the end of July 1999, organized hostilities in the Kargil district had ceased." (WIKIPEDIA)

Things to bear in mind:

Pakistan had only very recently joined the nuclear club (they detonated their first bomb in 28 May, 1998. The Kargil conflict started in May 1999). Hence, the arsenal was, shall we say, a bit shallow. The US and Russia have been at it for quite a bit longer.

Anonymous:"What is so unreasonable about holding post-Soviet Russia to the same standards as post-Nazi Germany?"

Germany was crushed in WW2 and was divided in half between the Soviet Union and the Western powers.Significant chunks of German Territory were taken away (cf East Prussia). Plus, ethnic German communities (many of centuries standing) were ethnically cleansed of Germans.

Would it be OK to split the current Ukraine into two (2) distinct nations, in the way that Czechoslovakia split into Czech and Slovak republics? Would that be acceptable to the USA/West/EU? Not something that I encourage, but what will satisfy the West?

Must the legitimately elected government of Ukraine run away because a bunch of anonymous guys start fires and start attacking the government in the heart of Kiev? These anonymous guys are shooting, *killing* representatives of the legitimate government. Is it crazy to ask for democratic change through normal elections?

Kibernetika said: Would it be OK to split the current Ukraine into two (2) distinct nations, in the way that Czechoslovakia split into Czech and Slovak republics? Would that be acceptable to the USA/West/EU? Not something that I encourage, but what will satisfy the West?

The Russians have been suggesting a compromise trade system where East Ukraine is in the Russian tariff bloc and West Ukraine is in the EU bloc. They cite the precedent of how Greenland is part of Denmark, but Greenland is not in the EU.

The Russians have to be more reasonable than the US because they are weaker.

Would it be OK to split the current Ukraine into two (2) distinct nations, in the way that Czechoslovakia split into Czech and Slovak republics?

That may be the most sensible answer to this problem. In the end, eastern Ukraine would be absorbed into Russia - but that is what the easterners seem to want. Western Ukraine could carry the nationalist banner, and be close to the West, like Poland.

"I see Ukraine's independence movement as a struggle against Russian and neo-Soviet imperialism."

It is that but on top of that it is also a war by neocons against Putin so their cousins can go back to looting Russia.

So...tricky one. Fair enough if Poles and Ukrainians have a different view but personally EUSUK is as bad as USUK which for the time being makes Russia-China not the good guys exactly but the less-bad guys.

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"Yet here we see Cohen complaining about the demonization of Russia. Maybe Cohen's a crypto-Gentile? That's the only possible explanation."

Alternatively when talking about people, all x are y is never true.

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"What's happening in Venezuela doesn't seem to be nationalistic. (Ideological, economic, maybe a bit racial, but not fighting between nations) Syria, Thailand too. This may be a Euro thing."

The scale of inter-ethnic conflict varies with the population.

Venezuela is racial, Indio vs White. There'll be a lot of that in South America as the US crumbles.

But yes, Europeans were the first - after Jews - to develop a national scale ethnic consciousness.

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"Isn't jingoism nationalistic? The American media hates American nationalism."

The American media aren't American. They are jingoistic for their nation - which rules America but isn't part of it.

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"How can Russia be considered to have 'no natural defenses'?...The evidence would seem to suggest that Russia has superb natural defenses."

Russia's natural defenses only work with a scorched earth policy i.e. burn half your country down to starve an invader out. This is very effective but you're left with a half burned down country.

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"Just watching Cossacks whip Pussy Riot on Channel 4 News. Standing up against the New World Order - I love Putin more each day. >:)"

Weird. Men hitting women usually makes me go berserker but Pussy Riot are being used by neocons to betray and poison their country so I quite enjoyed that.

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"Meanwhile, back in Chicago Police develop computer program to predict crime. I wonder if we can predict some of the heuristics they used?"

You don't need one that is the beauty of it. You just record the crimes that happen and use the recorded frequencies as the heuristic. It's no different to what used to happen before PC i.e. cops used their experience of past crime, but making it computerized shuts out complaints over individual prejudice.

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"Unfortunately, WWIII is starting. Sooner or later Russia will have to respond militarily to all the meddling by the US."

You're right WWIII is starting but it won't be the way WWIII was imagined because it can't be - cos nukes.

All Russia-China have to do to take done USUK is take down the dollar.

WWIII will then break out in the form of 100s of separate ethno-sectarian civil wars across the West, Africa, south America etc.

They did it again and no doubt will do so in the future until people realize the problems inherent in their banking system.

"[T]he age of MAD is nearing an end. Today, for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy. It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike. This dramatic shift in the nuclear balance of power stems from a series of improvements in the United States' nuclear systems, the precipitous decline of Russia's arsenal, and the glacial pace of modernization of China's nuclear forces. Unless Washington's policies change or Moscow and Beijing take steps to increase the size and readiness of their forces, Russia and China -- and the rest of the world -- will live in the shadow of U.S. nuclear primacy for many years to come."

As a Pole, I have little natural sympathy for the Ukrainians (we lost more land to them in 1945 than we got from Germany) and yet, after all, there has hardly been a less lucky country in the world in this century."

I do not like Putin, nor do I trust Russia. Mainly, as an American, I think that the Ukraine is and ought to be none of our affair. But let me ask you this: as a Pole, do you feel that further empowering the EU is a good idea? it seems to me that the EU will be more destructive of the traditional Polish nation than the Soviet Union ever managed to be. That is not meant to excuse the Soviet occupation of your country - it just seems to me to be true.

anon:"This is presuming MAD. MAD is not really the case anymore, as the US effectively has or is close to having nuclear primacy"

I bet the US (and allies) could fight and 'win' an all out nuclear war with Russia & China, especially if it launched an unprovoked first strike. It could kill hundreds of millions and destroy those countries, while surviving itself. But what are the chances it could destroy *every single* enemy ICBM? That it could win a nuclear war without losing New York and Washington DC (never mind London, you can write us off for sure)? Winning - but losing several major cities including your financial & political capitals. Losing millions of citizens, including lots of important people. It might be worth it if facing an existential threat, but in a war of aggression for no meaningful strategic objective? Not to mention that it would destroy US moral standing for all time; she would only be able to maintain global domination through straightforward tyranny.

Nuclear powers don't have to be even approximately equal for deterrence to work. Pakistan is far inferior to India, India could destroy Pakistan, but again why would India want to lose Mumbai and millions of citizens to do so?

And guess who writes the history books, and the propaganda books, and the morality books?

I don't know who came up with this saying, but it is seriously retarded in the modern context. Short of armed conquest that incorporates and assimilates the losers' population, to the point they identify with - and become indistinguishable from - the winners, every country writes its own history, propaganda and morality books. The US defeated Japan, but Japan writes its own history books, and much of that history consists of portraying Japan as the primary victim of the Pacific War. Russia still portrays the US as evil incarnate despite losing the Cold War. It's long past time to retire that lazy, stupid and frankly ridiculous saying.

"[T]he age of MAD is nearing an end. Today, for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy. It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike. This dramatic shift in the nuclear balance of power stems from a series of improvements in the United States' nuclear systems, the precipitous decline of Russia's arsenal, and the glacial pace of modernization of China's nuclear forces. Unless Washington's policies change or Moscow and Beijing take steps to increase the size and readiness of their forces, Russia and China -- and the rest of the world -- will live in the shadow of U.S. nuclear primacy for many years to come."

This is Aspie style thinking at its worst. See, my nuke strike will wipe out your country, but I'll only take 20 to 40 million dead, depending on the breaks. Totally worth it.

In reality, no nation's leadership will accept that kind of arithmetic, barring a genuine existential threat.

Indeed, for a historical parallel to our current state, look back at the '50s. The US had a strong strategic superiority over the Soviets, but WW3 did not break out. The Soviets crushed uprisings in East Berlin and in Hungary, and the USA did not start lobbing missiles. For that matter, look at the current India-Pakistan situation. India has strategic superiority over Pakistan, but they haven't decided to nuke the Pakistanis. Why? Because they don't want to see millions of their people dead.

Final point: Nuclear Winter. Even assuming that the USA is governed by Aspie types who look at the globe as a life-size version of RISK ("Tough break, there, Jim, losing New York, London, Miami, Pittsburgh, Paris, and Berlin, but at least you totally destroyed Russia"), the environmental after effects of a nuclear exchange of that magnitude would be catastrophic.

Anonymous:"Bulgaria had it worse, being on the Bad Side and losing in WWI, WWII, and the Cold War."

Bulgaria enjoys the benefit of anonymity. No one really cares what they do, for good or ill.

Case in point: Bulgaria and the Holocaust:

"Unlike some other Nazi Germany allies or German-occupied countries excluding Denmark and Finland, Bulgaria managed to save its entire 48,000-strong Jewish population during World War II from deportation to concentration camps, with Dimitar Peshev playing a crucial role in preventing the deportations, as well as Bulgarian Church officials, King Boris, and ordinary citizens. The story of the Bulgarian Jews during World War II has been told in "Beyond Hitler's Grasp: The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria's Jews"[7] by Michael Bar-Zohar, an Israeli historian, politician and former Knesset member who was born in Bulgaria. Another book on the subject is by Tzvetan Todorov, a French intellectual born in Bulgaria and the Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (C.N.R.S.) in Paris. Todorov wrote "The Fragility of Goodness: Why Bulgaria's Jews Survived the Holocaust" (published by Princeton Univ. Press), where he uses letters, diaries, government reports and memoirs to reconstruct what happened in Bulgaria during World War II"(WIKIPEDIA)

People laud the Danes for saving their Jewish population, but the far larger numbers saved by the Bulgarians go unremarked in the popular consciousness.

Nuclear powers don't have to be even approximately equal for deterrence to work.

Nuclear primacy means no other state has second-strike deterrence.

Both conventional war and limited nuclear war can become more possible with nukes. It's easy for states to distinguish between large scale nuclear attacks on their home countries and conventional attacks and tactical nuclear strikes in the battlefield, so they can be decoupled. Conventional and tactical nuclear strikes don't automatically escalate to all out nuclear war.

Anonymous:"Nuclear primacy means no other state has second-strike deterrence."

No, it means that the other states do not have an effective second-strike deterrence, which does not mean that the attacking power would not, to quote DR STRANGELOVE, get its hair mussed. The USA would have to accept millions dead, and no politician, barring a genuine existential threat, is going to accept that kind of scenario.

Anonymous:"Both conventional war and limited nuclear war can become more possible with nukes. It's easy for states to distinguish between large scale nuclear attacks on their home countries and conventional attacks and tactical nuclear strikes in the battlefield, so they can be decoupled. Conventional and tactical nuclear strikes don't automatically escalate to all out nuclear war."

Sure, they don't have to, but actual historical experience argues against it. The US and the Soviets had ample opportunities for the use of tactical nukes during the period 1949-1991: The Korean War, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. They never used them. Why? No one wanted to take the risk. That's what Aspie strategists don't grasp.

No, it means that the other states do not have an effective second-strike deterrence, which does not mean that the attacking power would not, to quote DR STRANGELOVE, get its hair mussed. The USA would have to accept millions dead, and no politician, barring a genuine existential threat, is going to accept that kind of scenario.

No, nuclear primacy means that you can disable other states' nuclear delivery capability which means that other states lack second-strike deterrence.

Anonymous:"No, nuclear primacy means that you can disable other states' nuclear delivery capability which means that other states lack second-strike deterrence."

Only as a dictionary definition. In the real world, no American president would be able to count on completely knocking out Russia's nukes. He would have to assume, at minimum, a handful getting through. Not enough to destroy the USA, but enough to cause millions of American dead. To an Aspie, that is perfectly ok. To a normal human, that kind of risk is only justified in cases of existential threat.

Anonymous:"No, nuclear primacy means that you can disable other states' nuclear delivery capability which means that other states lack second-strike deterrence"

Here's an article that shows some of the flaws in the "nuclear primacy" scenario:

"One should not estimate the strategic military results of a massive nuclear strike without first conducting a preliminary assessment of the ecological consequences of such an attack, because these consequences can be clearly unacceptable for both an attacker and the world as a whole. Lieber and Press ignored this consideration.

An ecological examination must include an assessment of all possible aspects of this attack, including the consequences of: hundreds of American nuclear warheads detonating on Russian soil; the destruction of thousands of Russian nuclear warheads and the corresponding secondary effects; the interception of Russian retaliation warheads by U.S. Ballistic Missile Defenses (BMD); and the explosions of Russian warheads on American territory, if U.S. BMD failed. In any case, the results of this examination must be made public, because the final decision about their admissibility must belong to the people rather than to a handful of politicians and high-ranking military officers.

Lieber and Press examine only one scenario: a Surprise Attack at Peacetime Alert levels (SAPTA). Although they concede that this event is not “likely”, they use this variant as the basis for all their serious conclusions. We will not talk about the moral and ethical reasons, but rather focus upon the political and military-technical issues which render this approach unworkable.

First, to implement SAPTA the National Command Authority (NCA) must have in place a set of legislatively approved special conditions authorizing this action. No such set now exists.

Secondly, the NCA is obliged to inform the nation about this critical decision before a first strike is launched. This must be done if only to provide a time-buffer in which its citizens could implement some measures of protection against the possible negative consequences of the attack.

Third, in order to conduct a first strike it is necessary to implement a number of organizational and technical procedures within the strategic nuclear forces. This is because in peacetime there are numerous procedural and technological blocks in place which are designed to protect nuclear weapons against human error, accidents and sabotage. In order to remove such barriers as a preliminary step towards launching a nuclear first strike, it would require the participation of a significant number of crews on duty working at different operational levels.

The implementation of all the above mentioned circumstances as preparations for a “surprise” first strike would be technically impossible to hide. Therefore, the opposite side would have a certain amount of time to raise the combat readiness of its strategic nuclear forces. If Russia did that, then, as Lieber and Press recognize themselves, nuclear retaliation is inevitable.

Lieber and Press also assume that the Russian Early Warning System will be completely unable to reveal a massed American attack capable of destroying all Russian nuclear forces. “A critical issue for the outcome of a U.S. attack [they say] is the ability of Russia to launch on warning (i.e., quickly launch a retaliatory strike before its forces are destroyed). It is unlikely that Russia could do this.”

We believe this important conclusion demands more serious calculations than the mere statement that “it is unlikely”. It’s necessary to prove that the Russian EWS will be completely incapable of revealing such massed American attack which is capable of destroying all Russian nuclear forces.

Admittedly, the Russian EWS is now weakened. However, if it is able to detect even a small part of the American attack, then it is impossible to rule out the possibility that Russia will react by utilizing the policy of Launch on Warning (LoW), i.e., launching its missiles before the attack is confirmed by nuclear detonations. The number of nuclear warheads in a Russian LoW strike will be far more than in case of a pure LuA (Launch under Attack) variant.

Thus, the implied ecological admissibility of a nuclear strike, the procedural and technical complexities of ordering and executing a surprise attack, and the assumed full inability of Russian EWS together constitute too many assumptions to be built into such a definitive definition of “Nuclear Primacy”.

A more detailed and technical version of the Foreign Affairs article can be found in the spring 2006 edition of International Security (see “The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of U.S. Nuclear Primacy”). Yet even in this longer version of their article, a language of assumptions remains the characteristic feature of the methodology of Lieber and Press.

For example, they write, “The Russian early warning system would PROBABLY not give Russia ‘s leaders the time they need to retaliate; in fact it is questionable WHETHER it would give them any warning at all. Stealthy B-2 bombers COULD LIKELY penetrate Russian air defenses without detection. Furthermore, low-flying B-52 bombers COULD fire stealthy nuclear-armed cruise missiles from outside Russian airspace; these missiles — small, radar-absorbing, and flying at very low altitude — would LIKELY provide no warning before detonation.” We think this isn’t the language of serious proofs, especially on such an important theme.

Lieber and Press state that, “Our model does not prove that a U.S. disarming attack against Russia would necessarily succeed. Nor does the model assume that the United States is likely to launch a nuclear first strike. Even if U.S. leaders were highly confident of success, a counterforce strike would entail enormous risks and costs.” We must ask: if this is so, then how can they predict that “a surprise attack at peacetime alert levels would have a reasonable chance of success”?

As for our own assessment of the model, which is described in detail in International Security, it is as follows:

The authors have used an analytical type of model, in which a studied process is imitated with the help of formulas. However, it is well known among experts that creating a more or less correct description of a nuclear war through an analytical model is a hopeless task.

It is necessary to take into account an enormous number of different factors. Even if someone is able to offer a formula (or set of formulas) for each of these factors, it will be impossible to combine them as a whole within the framework of such a complex process.

In any case, such an “analytical conglomeration” will be incredibly difficult to accurately evaluate. We believe a statistical imitation model (SIM) is the preferable medium for such studies.

Apparently, Lieber and Press understood this difficulty very well, for there are only two simple formulas in their calculations: one formula to determine a “lethal range” against a given Russian target, and a second formula to calculate a “single-shot probability of kill” for the selected American warhead. They model only an immediate process of destroying Russian targets, and only for concrete types of “warhead-target” pairs. The authors offer an artificial picture such as the following: American warheads “lie” near Russian targets, and at “X” moment all of them are detonated simultaneously. It isn’t clear from their explanations how individual assessments are combined to tables of results for all Russian nuclear forces.

Therefore, one can say that the authors tried to imitate only the small, final part of the huge process of a nuclear war. Many other serious elements also remained beyond the scope of their research. One should not assume that there will be a 100% probability of such events as:

a) the strict implementation of launch order by all American duty crews in full accordance to the selected structure of a nuclear first strike (and this structure itself also isn’t clear in the given case); i.e., a human factor may be decisive for the real size of an American first strike. Will ALL American duty crews be able to push the button against Russia on one of the cloudless days of peacetime?

b) the inability of the Russian side to use either a LoW or LuA response. Each of many possible variations of a first strike must take this likelihood into account. For example, if all American warheads are launched simultaneously, then they reach targets at different times, and Russia can use information about nuclear explosions for its response. On the contrary, if the structure of the first strike provides a synchronous arrival at Russian targets, then the total flight time required for the American strike is sufficiently large enough to allow Russia a better possibility to detect the initial U.S. launches;

c) the somnolence of all Russian nuclear forces. As we have noted, the slightest sign of a U.S. preparation for a first strike will immediately lead to an increase of combat readiness of at least some part of Russian strategic nuclear forces. Thus, the probability of their survival will be far greater than in case of the variant offered by Lieber and Press;

d) the destruction of the Russian nuclear command and control system (C3). The authors believe that this system will be completely neutralized. However, some portion of the Russian C3 could survive to launch all remaining missiles even after absorbing a U.S. first strike.

It is extremely important to note that the method of “fixed” assessment of results used by Leiber and Press is essentially incorrect. They contradict themselves. On the one hand, they discuss a “95 percent confidence interval” for all these calculations. On the other hand, they say nothing about “non-typical” results within the remaining 5%. However, these “non-typical” results are far more important for a correct assessment of a risk of a first strike than all others listed in Table 4 (Model Results) and in Figures 1-3.

Usually, for ordinary studies of a process with an accidental nature, it is correct to utilize the most probable results for assessment, and ignore the non-typical ones. Lieber and Press transmit this correct rule to their modeling of a nuclear war. This is a serious methodological mistake.

The absolutely unique consequences of nuclear war dictate the need for a quite opposite approach: we are obliged to estimate a risk through the most unacceptable results, even if they are non-typical. Lieber and Press must study this 5% in the first place, but instead they ignore them! This calculation involves the death of many millions of people and quite possibly the destruction of civilization — it cannot be made lightly.

They write, “some probability of nuclear retaliation far below 100 percent should deter almost any prospective attacker. They [critics] err, however, by assuming that any level of first-strike uncertainty will create a powerful deterrent effect. There is no deductive reason to believe that a country with a 95 percent chance of successfully destroying its enemy’s nuclear force on the ground will act as cautiously as a country that only has a 10 percent chance of success.”

In our view, this is the main error of Lieber and Press. The decisive factor is the EXISTENCE ITSELF of unacceptable results of retaliation, independent of their probability and size. This is because the individual probability of unacceptable results among all possible results of modeling does not play the decisive role; ANY of the calculated results IS possible if a real nuclear war occurs; i.e., IS, but not ARE, because a real nuclear war is possible only one time.

In 1987, American experts stated that, “Dramatically different outcomes might not be downright unlikely, but only less than the expected outcome. The expected outcome, thought the most likely, might nonetheless be unlikely . . . most sinister of all, but almost surely present, are the ‘unknown unknowns’ of which operational planners are not even aware.” (Managing Nuclear Operations, by A.Carter, J.Steinbruner and C.Zraket, 1987, p.612)

Finally, Lieber and Press too often refer to history to confirm the correctness of their conclusions. As they suggest, the experience of the Cold War gives them the right to believe that “the possibility of a U.S. nuclear attack should not be entirely dismissed.” We think, however, that historical parallels are always dangerous. But in the given case they are absolutely inadmissible. At least, such conclusions should not be used as the basis for a scientific argument.

OUR CONCLUSION:

We believe the noted shortcomings of both the mathematical modeling and the approach to the assessment of modeling results are enough to consider the main conclusion of Lieber and Press as incorrect. The U.S. cannot eliminate Russian nuclear forces by means of a surprise attack without causing unacceptable damage to itself. We are confident that neither the U.S. nor Russia will obtain “Nuclear Primacy” in the future.

However, in order to adequately resolve this ultimate question, a joint working group of American and Russian official experts should be organized to model all possible present and future scenarios of a nuclear war. Such joint modeling is possible, with the help of already known data plus conditional ones, without inflicting any damage on the national security of both countries. And the results of this cooperation must be open to the public.

It is of the utmost importance that both the U.S. and the Russian Federation permanently demonstrate to the satisfaction of each other that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.

The 2006 article about America's growing ability to imagine launching a surprise nuclear first strike on Russia without losing a few big American cities was interesting, but the Russians seem to have since stabilized their once-collapsing nuclear deterrent forces. The Russkies finally put two new nuclear boomer subs into service in 2013 and have a third new one in testing. Each one carries 16 MIRVed ballistic missiles.

Steve Sailer:"The 2006 article about America's growing ability to imagine launching a surprise nuclear first strike on Russia without losing a few big American cities was interesting, but the Russians seem to have since stabilized their once-collapsing nuclear deterrent forces. The Russkies finally put two new nuclear boomer subs into service in 2013 and have a third new one in testing. Each one carries 16 MIRVed ballistic missiles."

RE: Subs and mobile nukes:

"Moreover, this notional strike ignores several of the qualitative developments in Russia’s arsenal. In 2006, Lieber and Press wrote off the most survivable elements of Russia’s arsenal – its mobile ICBMs and SSBNs – with the understanding that they spent the majority of their time in port or in garrison, respectively. There is reason to believe that both of these elements could be on periodic, if not continuous, patrol.

As of 2012, however, Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Vladimir Vysotskiy has announced that Russia will soon resume continuous SSBN patrols as of June 1, 2012 (though the article also notes deficiencies in submarines’ serviceability).3 Moreover, Russia announced plans on April 19, 2012 to begin patrolling two Borei-class SSBNs. Analysts, such as Pavel Podvig, have expressed doubts that Russia will return to Cold War levels of submarine patrol, but the these announcements certainly indicate Russian intentions to restore patrols of its strategic submarines.

The patrols of mobile ICBMs are somewhat more difficult to determine. On the one hand, Podvig expressed doubt that Russian ICBMs patrolled much at all in 2008, echoing Lieber and Press’s 2006 assessment. On the other hand, the blog Russian Defense Policy provides translations of several articles in Russian newspapers that claim SS-25, SS-27 Mod. 1, and SS-27 Mod. 2 mobile ICBMs are patrolling more often, as of January 2012. I am unable to assess the validity of these papers’ claims, but if these forces are patrolling more often, it would make a counterforce strike against the Russian arsenal difficult to carry out with a high degree of confidence.

Even if we accept the premise of boastful Russian media and conclude that Russia’s SSBNs and truck-mounted ICBMs only sporadically patrol, significant questions remain about the feasibility of Lieber and Press’s counterforce attack. Even these forces remain largely “on the reservation,” that does not mean that they are both garrisoned or in port simultaneously. A prudent nuclear planner would time the patrols of each such that at least one mobile missile contingent is deployed on land or sea at all times to assure a survivable retaliatory force.

Moreover, in the event of a crisis that could escalate to war, we have every reason to believe that Russia would flush its submarines and scatter its mobile missiles to the four winds to assure that its nuclear deterrent is difficult to locate, available for use in a counterattack, and assure that no rival would dare to initiate a conflict. This reasoning is the explicit purpose for building SSBNs and truck-mounted ICBMs. In planning their scenario, then, Lieber and Press are contemplating a US president ordering a bolt-from-the-blue nuclear attack on Russia in the total absence of a crisis that could cause Russia to mobilize its forces.I find it very difficult to imagine this set of circumstances existing in reality, or, as Gen. (ret.) Cartwright’s Global Zero panel writes, “nuclear planning for Cold War-style nuclear conflict between our countries functions on the margins … using outdated scenarios that are implausible today.” (http://csis.org/blog/american-nuclear-primacy-end-mad-or-new-start)

These results show that the United States cannot reasonably claim to have obtained nuclear primacy. Reductions in the two nations’ respective arsenals, coupled with the large number of Russian targets collaborate to make it exceptionally difficult to destroy the Russian arsenal in a counterforce first strike. Even though my results demonstrate a modest level of confidence in the baseline scenario, I believe that mutually assured destruction remains in place. Because the costs of even a single Russian warhead surviving would have such devastating consequences for the United States, I do not believe that any President or military planner would care to wager America’s most populous cities in conducting a nuclear first strike. While these results speak to the purely military considerations of that choice, the political, ethical and humanitarian considerations likewise make such an action highly unlikely.(http://csis.org/blog/american-nuclear-primacy-end-mad-or-new-start)

The Russian Navy already owns the Black Sea, or to be more precise, rents it from Ushchenko. Much in the way that Russia rents the Baikanur facilities in Kazakshtan. My hypothetical partition of Ukraine would allow the Russian fleet to maintain its current facilities. So the Russians wouldn't lose much; the West would gain a little and be able to satisfy their public-facing moral conscience, gain a few hip press releases, provide fodder for that Washington retard, Jay "Pajama Boy" Carney ;)

Because the costs of even a single Russian warhead surviving would have such devastating consequences for the United States, I do not believe that any President or military planner would care to wager America’s most populous cities in conducting a nuclear first strike.

A single Russian warhead obviously would not have devastating consequences for the US.

Furthermore, with US nuclear primacy or dominance, it's not clear other states would even bother striking back since they have no chance of winning the escalation anyway.

See, my nuke strike will wipe out your country, but I'll only take 20 to 40 million dead, depending on the breaks. Totally worth it.

With US nuclear primacy, it's not 20 to 40 million. It's much lower. Let's say they have a 5% chance (which is quite generous) of striking back. If they target NYC with its population of 10 million, with a 5% chance that's just an expected value of 500,000 people.

This is presuming MAD. MAD is not really the case anymore, as the US effectively has or is close to having nuclear primacy:"

That is complete and utter drivel. The US has nothing like nuclear primacy. There are still, as there always has been, the Russians. And with the with the rise of the Chinese, the world of nuclear powers is now tri-polar (plust the three minor poles - the UK, France, and Israel).

Perhaps the greatest existential threat to America is american triumphalism.

Anonymous:"A single Russian warhead obviously would not have devastating consequences for the US."

Obviously, you have been living in a cave since August, 2001. 9/11 did a lot less damage to the USA than a nuclear strike would. But look at the devastating psychological/cultural impact.

Anonymous:"Furthermore, with US nuclear primacy or dominance, it's not clear other states would even bother striking back since they have no chance of winning the escalation anyway."

Aspie thinking again. If my country is being destroyed by a US nuclear strike, why would I not want to extract revenge?At that point, it would not be about winning, it would be about hurting the USA.

Anonymous:"With US nuclear primacy, it's not 20 to 40 million. It's much lower. Let's say they have a 5% chance (which is quite generous) of striking back. If they target NYC with its population of 10 million, with a 5% chance that's just an expected value of 500,000 people."

Which would be more than the US death toll in WW2. To an Aspie, those are acceptable losses. But no American president would inflict that kind of damage on the US unless we were facing a genuine existential threat.

Plus, there is still the question of ecological damage stemming from an all out nuclear assault on the Soviets to contend with...

Anonymous:"With US nuclear primacy, it's not 20 to 40 million. It's much lower. Let's say they have a 5% chance (which is quite generous) of striking back. If they target NYC with its population of 10 million, with a 5% chance that's just an expected value of 500,000 people."

Try reading this again:

"Moreover, in the event of a crisis that could escalate to war, we have every reason to believe that Russia would flush its submarines and scatter its mobile missiles to the four winds to assure that its nuclear deterrent is difficult to locate, available for use in a counterattack, and assure that no rival would dare to initiate a conflict. This reasoning is the explicit purpose for building SSBNs and truck-mounted ICBMs. In planning their scenario, then, Lieber and Press are contemplating a US president ordering a bolt-from-the-blue nuclear attack on Russia in the total absence of a crisis that could cause Russia to mobilize its forces.I find it very difficult to imagine this set of circumstances existing in reality,"

Anonymous:" Let's say they have a 5% chance (which is quite generous) of striking back. If they target NYC with its population of 10 million, with a 5% chance that's just an expected value of 500,000 people."

Seems like a lowball estimate:

"Try it yourself. Enter the location as “Goldsboro, N.C.” and set the bomb yield at 4,000 kilotons (equal to 4 megatons. NUKEMAP 3D calculates the Goldsboro bomb as a fireball incinerating everything in a radius of 1.05 miles from ground zero, a lethal radiation zone (500 rems of radiation in an instant, when no more than 100 rems over an entire year is considered safe) extending 1.84 square miles, a pressure wave of 20 pounds per square inch that would demolish concrete buildings at a distance of 2.78 miles, a 5 PSI pressure that would collapse most ordinary buildings 6.86 miles from the blast zone, and thermal radiation hot enough to start fires and cause third-degree burns 15.2 miles from the blast site. The radiation plume would stream past Delaware almost to southern New Jersey. The death toll is estimated at 60,000 (for New York City, it would be 3.8 million dead). The bomb “derived around 55% of its total yield from fission, which meant it was pretty ‘dirty’ as far as H-bombs went,” Wellerstein told me. While NUKEMAP 3D assumes the bomb would be an airburst (the preferred method of nuclear strategists who want to maximize destruction)," (http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2013/09/25/this-is-what-happens-when-an-h-bomb-explodes-over-north-carolina/)

Anonymous:" Let's say they have a 5% chance (which is quite generous) of striking back. If they target NYC with its population of 10 million, with a 5% chance that's just an expected value of 500,000 people."

Anonymous:" Let's say they have a 5% chance (which is quite generous) of striking back. If they target NYC with its population of 10 million, with a 5% chance that's just an expected value of 500,000 people."

Anonymous:"Furthermore, with US nuclear primacy or dominance, it's not clear other states would even bother striking back since they have no chance of winning the escalation anyway.

With US nuclear primacy, it's not 20 to 40 million. It's much lower. Let's say they have a 5% chance (which is quite generous) of striking back. If they target NYC with its population of 10 million, with a 5% chance that's just an expected value of 500,000 people."

Time: 1 April, 2019

Place: The White House

My fellow Americans, as you know, it has been the established policy of my administration to restore good relations with Russia. This policy has borne fruit, as the USA and Russia now enjoy a relationship of almost perfect amity.

It is for this reason that I ordered the nuclear strike that decimated Russia six hours ago. You see, General "Buck" Turgidson and Dr Henry Strangelove, my two closest strategic advisers, informed me that this was the perfect moment to attack. Striking without warning at a moment of seeming perfect peace ensures that we will hit the Russians with their pants down, as it were.

The success of this strategy can be seen from the fact that the USA has suffered only a little over one million dead, a figure that is perfectly acceptable in a nation of our size.

I should add, that Turgidson and Strangelove had actually told me that the Russians would not even bother striking back, as such a counter-attack would have no chance of achieving victory. It seems that they did not count on the Russians being sore losers.

Still, even with our small and acceptable losses, this is a great day for America. I will now take a few questions before turning you over to the Sec. of Agriculture, who will brief you on the environmental consequences of our attack on Russia. I will state, however, that he assures me that the results of the attack are more likely to be a nuclear Autumn than a nuclear Winter. Hence, deaths due to famine should be in acceptably low numbers.

That is complete and utter drivel. The US has nothing like nuclear primacy. There are still, as there always has been, the Russians. And with the with the rise of the Chinese, the world of nuclear powers is now tri-polar (plust the three minor poles - the UK, France, and Israel).

You don't understand what "nuclear primacy" means. It's a technical term. It doesn't mean you're the only country with nukes. You can have nuclear primacy while many other states have lots of nukes.

Aspie thinking again. If my country is being destroyed by a US nuclear strike, why would I not want to extract revenge?At that point, it would not be about winning, it would be about hurting the USA.

You don't seem to understand the logic of nuclear primacy.

With nuclear primacy, you can eliminate most to all of the adversary's nuclear weapons and delivery capability.

In the event that your strike fails to take out all of the adversary's nuclear retaliatory capability and the adversary does retaliate, you can escalate and start targeting the adversary's civilians directly. Either they will immediately capitulate or be subdued following the escalation.

Anonymous:"Sites like Nukemap are run by anti-war outfits. They're sensationalistic."

Whereas you are one the tribe of sober, dispassionate thinkers, eh?Which, as I have indicated, carries with it certain inadequacies. For example, your complete inability to understand normal human reactions.Which makes you a very inept strategic thinker.

Of course, being anti-war (what a horrible notion; the very idea of being opposed to war!)and even being sensationalistic does not mean that they are wrong. Do you have any concrete evidence of their projections being significantly in error?

Anonymous:"You don't seem to understand the logic of nuclear primacy."

That's probably because I live in the real world, dear boy. You know, that nasty place that tends not to function in quite the fashion that our theoretical models say that it should.

Anonymous:"With nuclear primacy, you can eliminate most to all of the adversary's nuclear weapons and delivery capability."

MMMM, I'm betting on "most" being significantly more likely than all, dear boy.

Anonymous:"In the event that your strike fails to take out all of the adversary's nuclear retaliatory capability and the adversary does retaliate,"

That would be the part where the president of the USA would have to explain to the American people that he just sacrificed the lives of (I'm feeling generous, so let's use your figure)500,00 Americans so that he could launch an unprovoked first strike on Russia (cf how this is the best case scenario for the advocates of nuclear primacy). Somehow, I find it very hard to imagine an actual US president doing that. But, then again, I'm not a high-functioning autistic.

Anonymous:" you can escalate and start targeting the adversary's civilians directly. Either they will immediately capitulate or be subdued following the escalation."

MMMM, I take it that "subdued" is Aspie-speak for destroyed? In any event, dear boy, you still have to fabricate a scenario where a peace-time president decides to sacrifice more American lives than were lost in WW2. Seems like something of a tall order.

Anonymous:"You don't seem to understand the logic of nuclear primacy."

You know, you are starting to remind me of that story about the economist who refused to pick up a 100 dollar bill that he found on the sidewalk; you see, his theoretical understanding of a capitalist economy told him that one simply cannot find 100 dollar bills lying in the streets....

That would be the part where the president of the USA would have to explain to the American people that he just sacrificed the lives of (I'm feeling generous, so let's use your figure)500,00 Americans so that he could launch an unprovoked first strike on Russia (cf how this is the best case scenario for the advocates of nuclear primacy).

No, he doesn't. Not with nuclear primacy. The adversary can't win an escalation so he capitulates. The adversary is warned that if the adversary retaliates, the adversary's civilians will then be directly targeted, in addition to the adversary's remaining nuclear capability.

I don't know who came up with this saying, but it is seriously retarded in the modern context. Short of armed conquest that incorporates and assimilates the losers' population, to the point they identify with - and become indistinguishable from - the winners, every country writes its own history, propaganda and morality books. The US defeated Japan, but Japan writes its own history books, and much of and and that history consists of portraying Japan as the primary victim of the Pacific War.

This is deeply stupid. Non-Soviet Europe became part of the American Empire in 1945. That is why today they are self-hating and suicidal. The ideological winners of WWII were the international left and the Jews. Japan escaped (and still escapes) intense thought reform/thought control for reasons too obvious to mention.

Anonymous:"No, he doesn't. Not with nuclear primacy. The adversary can't win an escalation so he capitulates."

Please remind me where it says that people who are faced with a no-win scenario must capitulate? Things like national pride and honor exist, dear boy. Some people would rather die than surrender.

Anonymous:" The adversary is warned that if the adversary retaliates, the adversary's civilians will then be directly targeted, in addition to the adversary's remaining nuclear capability."

And this will ensure that the "adversary" (I do love how theoreticians like to make things so disembodied)Does not launch a counter-attack?

When does this warning occur? Certainly not prior to the attack, as that would give them advance warning.After? Assuming that it is given after, how would such a warning prevent a counter-attack? The enemy counter-attack would be launched in immediate reaction to the attack.

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Or, once you sign up with Google Wallet, you can simply send money via credit card, bank transfer, or Wallet Balance as an attachment from Google's free Gmail email service. Here'show to do it.

(Non-tax deductible.)

Fourth: if you have a Wells Fargo bank account, you can transfer money to me (with no fees) via Wells Fargo SurePay. Just tell WF SurePay to send the money to my ancient AOL email address steveslrATaol.com -- replace the AT with the usual @). (Non-tax deductible.)

Fifth: if you have a Chase bank account (or, theoretically,other bank accounts), you can transfer money to me (with no fees) via Chase QuickPay (FAQ). Just tell Chase QuickPay to send the money to my ancient AOL email address (steveslrATaol.com -- replace the AT with the usual @). If Chase asks for the name on my account, it's Steven Sailer with an n at the end of Steven. (Non-tax deductible.)

My Book:

"Steve Sailer gives us the real Barack Obama, who turns out to be very, very different - and much more interesting - than the bland healer/uniter image stitched together out of whole cloth this past six years by Obama's packager, David Axelrod. Making heavy use of Obama's own writings, which he admires for their literary artistry, Sailer gives the deepest insights I have yet seen into Obama's lifelong obsession with 'race and inheritance,' and rounds off his brilliant character portrait with speculations on how Obama's personality might play out in the Presidency." - John Derbyshire Author, "Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics" Click on the image above to buy my book, a reader's guide to the new President's autobiography.